Drunk on Glaciology - Going to the Sun Pinot Gris

The next up on the Drunk on Geology series is Going to the Sun Pinot Gris by the Ten Spoon Vineyard from Missoula, MT. 

The name "Going to the Sun" could refer to two different but related things, both within Glacier National Park. The main road that crosses the central portion of the park is called Going-to-the-Sun Road, in honor of the mountain that is near the peak of the road at Logan Pass, which is Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. Both of which are glacially influenced features. According to the website:

This label honors the mountain goats leaping the peaks of Glacier Park, often seen at Logan Pass, top of the breathtaking Going To The Sun road.

I had previously done a Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures of Glacier National Park, but I will limit what I talk about here to just the road and the mountain related to the name of the wine. 

Looking closely at the bottle, it is obvious that the artist was intending for the road to look like it is going up to the mountain peak, however, the road pictured doesn't actually exist. Going-to-the-Sun Road generally stays towards the valleys, providing the easiest method from getting from the western part of the part to the eastern part, crossing the central mountains at Logan Pass. And actually, that's not the Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. I'm pretty sure that's Mount Oberlin, which is visible from the Going-to-the-Sun road on the western part of the part going up towards Logan Pass.

There is a shot of Mount Oberlin, from the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which does seem to match the mountain on the bottle pretty well. You can see the remnants of the glaciers up among the peaks, however as far as I am aware these are not active glaciers but snowfields. A snowfield remains during the entire year, while a glacier is a snowfield that slowly compacts into ice and eventually flows down the side of the mountain. As a glacier melts away, this process happens in reverse, where the glacier eventually turns into a snowfield. We can compare that to the Going-to-the-Sun Mountain below which is a very different mountain.

Going-to-the-Sun Mountain is the peak located on the left side of the Reynolds Creek valley here, sticking out in the picture. This picture was taken near Logan Pass facing towards the eastern part of the Going-to-the-Sun Road as it continues through the valley.

If we look at the Going-to-the-Sun Road as it traverses across the park from west to east, it travels first along the McDonald Creek valley. The McDonald Creek Valley is seen here directly in the center of the photo. The Going-to-the-Sun Road travels through that valley to the Logan Creek Valley. Both of these valleys are what are called U-shaped valleys, or glacial valleys. When a valley is eroded by a river or a stream it is constantly eroded by the water at the lowest part of the valley where the water is cutting into the ground. This forms a "V" shaped valley. However, when a glacier then comes into the valley, the ice of the glacier often fills the valley. This means that the glacier will then erode in all directions carving out a smoother walled valley in the shape of a "U". From here, high up on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, you can see a textbook example of the U-shaped valley through which we traveled through. 

After traversing up Logan Creek Valley, the road crosses the mountains at Logan Pass then continues down the other side through another U-shaped glacial valley, Reynolds Creek Valley, pictured above with Going-to-the-Sun Mountain located along side it. 

Text from the back of the bottle:

"Rich taste follows scents of rose petals and lime in this lively, sure-footed Pinto Gris, made in Montana from grapes grown at the Strand Vineyard, Naches Heights, WA. Take GOING TO THE SUN and follow the goats for a cliff-side picnic with crusty bread and of course, goat cheese." 

As you get near the peak of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, you can actually find quite a bit of the mountain goats for which the bottle pays tribute to. Here is one hanging out in the middle of the road in front of the upper part of Oberlin Falls, aka Bird Woman Falls, which is part of the upper reaches of Logan Creek. The rocks here, and really the majority of the rocks within the upper parts of all of these mountains near Logan Pass, is the Siyeh Limestone, a 1.1 billion year old (Proterozoic) limestone rich with early fossils such as stromatolites (algal mounds from a tidal environment). 

The falls pictured above and the mountain goat are perfect for this wine because they are both along the Going-to-the-Sun road, near the peak at Logan Pass. The waterfalls also start at Mount Oberlin, which is the mountain featured prominently on the front of the bottle. 

Drunk on Glaciology - Park Distillery Vodka Espresso

The next up on the Drunk on Geology series is the Vodka Espresso by the Park Distillery from Banff, Canada.  

Although not geological in name, the image on the bottle, which is the same image on many of the bottles at the distillery, is that of Mount Rundle, a prominent geological landmark within Banff National Park. I had previously done a Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures review of Banff National Park on my other page but I didn't get into Mount Rundle much there so that I could cover it here. 

Here is a close up of the image on the front of the bottle. The mountain is extremely easy to see from the town of Banff, as shown in the picture below. The mountain itself is not glacial in origin, however I have included it in my Drunk on Glaciology portion because of the heavy impact glaciers had on the mountain landscape itself as well as the surrounding region such as the glacially formed U-shaped valleys carved out of the thrust fault valleys described below.

Here is a view of Mount Rundle taken from the Banff Upper Hot Springs facing west. The hot springs actually use water that percolates into the soil from Mount Rundle in the distance. The water initially seeps into the ground in Mount Rundle's high western slopes, then works its way down into the ground through the sedimentary rock layers were it is slowly heated, pressurized, and enriched with local dissolved minerals (including sulphates, calcium, bicarbonate, magnesium, and sodium). After hundreds of years it then rises up towards the surface along the Sulphur Mountain Thrust Fault until it reaches the surface at one of the several outlets, including this one at the Upper Hot Springs. 

Location of Mount Rundle and Cascade Mountain in relation to the neighboring thrust faults and the town of Banff. Image modified from Travel Tales of Life. 

Mount Rundle is located on the south of the town of Banff, mirroring the equally impressive Cascade Mountain on the northern side of Banff. Both mountains are flanked by the Rundle Thrust Fault to the east and the Sulphur Mountain Thrust Fault to the west. 

Diagram of the formation of Mount Rundle along the thrust fault. Image is shown flipped where the fault should be dipping towards the west (left). Image courtesy of Travel Tales of Life.

The rocks of Mount Rundle were pushed upwards along the thrust from west towards the east, folding along their edge as they went. This thrust produced the westward sloping beds that are so well known along Mount Rundle. These mountains were thrusted up and over the neighboring rocks during the creation of the Canadian Rockies approximately 72 million years ago. 

 

Geology of Mount Rundle highlighted. Image courtesy of the Geological Survey of Canada.
Mr - Mississippian Rundle Limestone; Mb = Mississippi Banff shales; Dp = Devonian Palliser limestone cliffs

Mount Rundle is primarily made up of three geological formations. The Palliser limestone (aka Palliser Formation) is a Late Devonian (~360 million years old) that was deposited along a warm, coastal shelf environment, very similar to the Bahama Banks today. Then above that along the more eroded slopes is the Banff Shale. The Banff Shale (aka Banff Formation) is also a Late Devonian age deposit that was deposited in a sediment rich marine environment. And the top of the mountain is capped with the resistant Rundle limestone. The Rundle Limestone (aka the Rundle Group) is a Mississippian age (~340 million year old) limestone deposited in a marine environment.

Text from the side of the bottle:

"From 100% locally-farmed Alberta grain. Double distilled in our hand-built Kothe copper column still. Steeped with organic espresso beans from the Banff Roasting Company. Just like a rich cup of coffee brewed over an early morning campfire. But with vodka. So even better. 

Vista - Mount Rundle"

References

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Geological-map-of-Banff-showing-the-locations-of-thrust-faults-Borgeau-Sulphur_fig3_301749044

https://traveltalesoflife.com/iconic-alberta-mountains-rundle-thrust-fault/

http://parkscanadahistory.com/geology/misc-report-1-1960.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276829868_Orogenic_pulses_in_the_Alberta_Rocky_Mountains_Radiometric_dating_of_major_faults_and_comparison_with_the_regional_tectono-stratigraphic_record

Drunk on Glaciology - Park Distillery Glacier Rye

The next up on the Drunk on Geology series is the Glacier Rye Unaged Grain Spirit by the Park Distillery from Banff, Canada.  

Located in the heart of Banff National Park, the Park Distillery has many spirits with a geological flair to them. Besides just the name of the "Glacier Rye", the image on the bottle features one of the glaciers within Banff National Park, Crowfoot Glacier. I had previously done a Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures review of Banff National Park on my other page and talked a bit about the Crowfoot Glacier as well as many other geological features within the park. 

Generally, a glacier is a body of ice that doesn't melt during the warmer summer months. It starts off as a snowfield around the higher elevations, often near the peaks of mountains. The snowfield, which also doesn't melt throughout the year, builds up more and more snow over time. Eventually, the snow reaches a thickness where it starts to compact in on itself, forming ice in the lower layers of the snowpack. Eventually this ice gets so thick that is starts to flow and slide down the mountain peaks. At this point it can be deemed a glacier. As the temperature increases down the mountain sides eventually the glacier will reach an elevation where it is too warm to remain frozen for the entire year and will melt. If the local, and really global, temperatures are stable, the glacier will reach a balancing point where the amount of snowfall and ice accumulation at the top will equal the amount of melting at the bottom and the glacier will remain the same size (however always still flowing from top to bottom). If global temperatures are decreasing, the glacier will grow until a new balance point is achieved. If temperatures are increasing, then the glacier will decrease, or even completely disappear, until a new balance point is achieved. 

Text from the back of the bottle:

"We distill in the purest place on the planet. Out water originates at six Rocky Mountain glaciers, and our grain is sourced from high-altitude family farms in the Alberta foothills. Our Spirits are like no other in the world, because there is no other place in the world like Banff.

From 100% locally-farmed Alberta rye. Double pot distilled in our hand-built Kothe copper still. The remarkable nature of this 100% heart cut spirit demanded we bottle some unaged. The way a sky-blue, glacier-fed lake demands you dive right in. Which you don't. Because it's freezing [see below]. 

Vista - Crowfoot Mountain at Bow Lake, Banff National Park" 

As noted in the description, the image on the bottle is of Crowfoot Mountain at Bow Lake. Here is a panoramic shot of Bow Lake with Crowfoot Mountain on the left side of the image. Along with the formation of a glacier, there are many different features that are characteristic of glacial landscapes. These are both erosional and depositional. When a glacier is sliding down the side of a mountain it collects the rocks, soil, and pretty much anything that gets in its way and carries it down the mountain with it. Once it reaches the end of the glacier, where the ice is melting, the glacier acts like a conveyor belt and all of the material that it is carrying gets dropped into one big pile. This big pile is called a moraine, while the debris within the moraine is called till. 

Glaciers also carve out the valleys that they are travelling in. Starting as stream valleys, the profile of the valley will start out in a "V-shape" due to the stream carving down into the ground at the one central point. However, a glacier will often fill the valley it is traveling in, carving out the sides of the valley as well as the base of the valley. This will smooth out the "V", creating what is known as a "U-shaped" valley. Landscapes impacted by glaciers are often very easy to identify by these U-shaped valleys. A lot of times these features will overlap, like here at Bow Lake. Bow Lake is what is known as a moraine-dammed lake. This was a valley initially carved out by a glacier, forming a U-shaped valley. At the end of the valley, where the end (or toe) of the glacier was located, it formed a moraine. After the glacier melted away, the meltwater from the glacier flowed down into the valley but was dammed up by the moraine, forming Bow Lake that you see here.  

A close up shot of Crowfoot Mountain and the Crowfoot Glacier that can be seen on the front of the bottle. The Crowfoot Glacier is part of a much larger icefield, the Wapta Icefield, all of which are found along the Icefields Parkway at Banff National Park. The icefields located within Banff and other national parks in the region, are so large that they frequently have several glaciers that stick out from them, traveling down the surrounding mountain ranges. 

As the glaciers grow and slide down the mountain they form a bowl-shaped depression that they sit in known as a cirque. Eventually, should the glacier melt, the cirque, which is often cut down into the bedrock, provides an ideal location for a lake to develop. Crowfoot Glacier sits within the cirque that it has carved out and hopefully will remain there for a long time. However, with global temperatures rising, the amount of glaciers within Banff have been quickly decreasing and the size of the glaciers that are still present have all been shrinking. So, it is only a matter of time before these glaciers are gone for good.

I reemphasize what the back of the bottle says: "The way a sky-blue, glacier-fed lake demands you dive right in. Which you don't. Because it's freezing." 

We visited the park towards the end of July, which is around the warmest part of the year and even then the water was COLD, because they are direct runoffs from the melting glaciers. Here is another view of Bow Lake with the Bow Glacier up in the background, another glacier that is part of the Wapta Icefield. Both Bow Glacier and Crowfoot Glacier melt into Bow Lake. 

The beauty of Banff National Park can't be understated and the fact that Park Distillery highlights one of the most ideal glaciers to see along the main Icefields Parkway within the national park is no accident. This park is a sight to behold. 

Drunk on Glaciology - The Logo

 My next logo is:

Drunk on Glaciology

Glaciology is the study of glaciers and landforms produced by those glaciers. So for this one I wanted to show the side view of a glacier, cracked as it moves along. This glacier is in a hanging valley, which is a smaller valley that comes out into a much larger "U-shaped" glacial valley, except here the larger glacial valley is filled with a lake. Our bottle-shaped glacier is currently melting, producing the waterfall that is characteristic of a hanging valley, falling into the glacial U-shaped valley. To top it off our glacial lake contains iceberg ice cubes and some dropstones.